What does love mean to you?

What does love mean to you?

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What does love mean to you?

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What does it describe?

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How do you feel when I say that word?

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Does it feel calm?

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Comforting?

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Exciting?

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Soothing?

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Peaceful?

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Or does it feel stressful?

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Frustrating?

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Difficult?

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Unstable?

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Love is a weird word.

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It has a lot of connotations.

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It means different things to different people.

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But everyone should know what love is.

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What love feels like.

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We all do.

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That feeling.

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When you see someone.

Or something.

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And you just think, damn.

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I’m so happy you’re in my life.

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I’m so happy you’re here.

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I’m so happy I get to be around you.

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It could be for many things.

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For friends.

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For family.

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For your partner.

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For your pets.

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For a movie.

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Or a show.

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Or a book.

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You can love a lot of things.

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But why is yourself the hardest?

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Why is it so hard to love yourself?

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To forgive yourself?

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To give yourself credit?

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I don’t know.

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Probably starts when you’re a kid.

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Didn’t see love around you.

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Or if you did, it was always based on something.

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It wasn’t unconditional.

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It was tied to something else.

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For some, it was neglect.

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Having parents who weren’t around.

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Those who didn’t love you or raise you.

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For others, it’s success.

Results tied to achievement.

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Felt you could only be loved when you did something right.

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That was it for me.

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It’s something I still think about.

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I still deal with it all the time.

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Love felt conditional as a kid.

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Even though I know it wasn’t.

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It’s just that Indian parents don’t show love in traditional ways.

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They don’t hug you and kiss you and tell you you’re amazing.

They just show up for you.

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Make sure you're fed.

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Take you to school.

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Stress about your grades and how you’re doing at school.

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That was love to them.

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That was the love they saw as kids.

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They were just worried about survival.

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About making it.

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Their parents didn’t have time to love them the way they wanted.

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They loved them as much as they could.

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Doesn’t mean it was the right way to love.

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But they did their best.

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Just like our parents.

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They didn’t have a blueprint on how to raise kids.

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They just figured it out.

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Did the best they could with what they had.

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Some of us had terrible role models as kids.

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Others got lucky.

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But even if you did, everyone still faced trauma.

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Everybody.

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Moments when they were young are burned into their brain, their personality and their subconscious, which shape who they are.

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‘What Happened To You’

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One of the best books I’ve ever read.

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You are what you experienced from 0-5.

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Personality.

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Goals.

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Ambitions.

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Subconscious.

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But also how you were loved.

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How you received love.

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How you gave love.

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All shaped at those early ages.

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Most of us don’t ever think about those times.

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Never reflect.

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Never choose to understand who we are.

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And why we are the way we are.

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Go back and think.

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Write.

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Reflect.

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Go to therapy.

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Sit and stare at the sky.

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Go back to those days when you were a kid.

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What made you happy?

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What made you sad?

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Who did you have around you?

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Who raised you?

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What were they like?

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Did they give you the love you deserved?

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Or did they let you go?

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Think on it.

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Reflect on it.

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Then unlearn it.

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Forget it.

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Don’t let it eat you.

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Don’t let it consume you.

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Don’t let it hold you back.

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One of the hardest things about being an adult is unlearning our past.

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Especially our childhood.

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Just because things happened to us then doesn’t mean we have to hold it in us now.

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Instead of looking for love elsewhere, start with yourself.

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Love yourself first.

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Love yourself unconditionally.

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Love yourself always.

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Even if you didn’t get it, you must give love.

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First to yourself.

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Then everyone else.

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Because love is all around us.

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It is everywhere.

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In the unknown.

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In the ether.

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We just have to choose to see it.

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Choose to feel it.

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Choose to believe it.

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Love is always there for you.

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But are you listening to it?

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What does love mean to you?

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